September 4, 2003	Thursday	Rajab 6, 1424

WASHINGTON, Sept 3: Pakistan figures on a list of nations, along with India and China, that have achieved growth in productivity in 2002, says a new study by the International Labour Organization released here on Wednesday.

The United States topped the list after a gap of several decades.

While China, India, Pakistan and Thailand in Asia registered slight increase, productivity of the United States accelerated in 2002, surpassing Europe and Japan in terms of annual output per worker for the first time since World War II, the study says.

In key indicators of the labour market, the ILO notes that part of the difference in output per worker was due to the fact that Americans worked longer hours than their European counterparts.

Workers in the United States put in an average of 1,815 hours a year in 2002 compared to major European economies, where hours worked ranged from around 1,300 to 1,800. In Japan, hours worked dropped to about the same level as in the United States, the report says.

The findings show that growth in productivity per person worldwide accelerated from 1.5 per cent during the first half of the 1990s to 1.9 per cent in the second half.

Most of this growth was concentrated in industrialized economies, such as the United States and some European Union countries, and some in Asia, such as China, India, Pakistan and Thailand. In Africa and Latin America the report showed declines in total economy productivity growth since 1980.